Sunday, November 9, 2008

Two informed articles this weekend offer an inspired context and vision for the next chapter of American history. On Friday, Michael Lind outlined the three major republics of American history over at Salon. And today in the New York Times, Al Gore seems to respond by presenting a plan for the initial phase of the fourth.

Lind's "Obama and the dawn of the Fourth Republic" argues that America's republics start with a Hamiltonian impulse to big government solutions and conclude with a period of Jeffersonian reform seeking to pare down the federal buildup. His timeline lays the hammer on the outgoing administration, putting it helplessly in a class with Hoover's and Buchanan's:

The final president of a republic tends to be a failed, despised figure. The First Republic, which began with George Washington, ended with James Buchanan, a hapless president who refused to act as the South seceded after Lincoln's election. The Second Republic, which began with Abraham Lincoln, ended with the well-meaning but reviled and ineffectual Herbert Hoover. The Third Republic, founded by Franklin Roosevelt, came to a miserable end under the pathetic George W. Bush.

But more to the point, Lind speculates that technologies and economies of the age correspond to the cycles of political backlash:

Lincoln's Second American Republic marked a transition from an agrarian economy to one based on the technologies of the first industrial revolution -- coal-fired steam engines and railroads. Roosevelt's Third American Republic was built with the tools of the second industrial revolution -- electricity and internal combustion engines. It remains to be seen what energy sources -- nuclear? Solar? Clean coal? -- and what technologies -- nanotechnology? Photonics? Biotech-- will be the basis of the next American economy.

Here’s what we can do — now: we can make an immediate and large strategic investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.

Gore's points run the fiscal-eco-political gamut: 1) large-scale government investments in solar, wind and thermal; 2) a $400 billion dollar unified electric grid that would pay for itself in three years; 3) a package for big automakers and startups alike to accelerate hybrid auto adoption; 4) tie mortgage relief to an initiative retrofitting buildings and houses with energy-efficient insulation, windows and lighting; 5) trailblaze a Kyoto treaty replacement next year capping global carbon emissions and reducing deforestation.

Indeed, these measures summarize quite nicely the new technologies and economies that will define America's fourth republic. Together, the articles lend credence to the abundant comparisons of Obama to Lincoln and FDR, the presidents who launched the last two American republics. This means the energy and sense of change felt by most Americans isn't just real, it has a historical precedent. And noting the energetic youth engaged with Obama's presidential campaign, Gore offers a very real analogy of hope:

In an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10 years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the challenge was 18.

If Obama challenges America, as he has and surely will, to come together and make change, just think where we could be in 10 years. The mind stretches to fathom what the unified thought and might of 300 million Americans couldn't accomplish.

Perhaps most interesting in this piece, Hulu CEO Kilar touches briefly on piracy: "You're much better off competing and building a delightful service," Kilar says, "as opposed to thinking that you can stop and shut down things through gateways." That's a quantum leap for anyone in Hollywood. They may have realized that the best way to beat piracy is actually to compete, to actually make it easier to buy or watch your favorites than to steal them. Is that a better investment than millions of dollars in lawsuits against fans and websites? Methinks.

Also check out JibJab CEO Spiridellis touch on the best way to build a brand digitally, and Thumbplay SVP Rotter note that the mobile space is a marketplace that people keep with them every waking hour of the day. According to Juniper, goods purchased via mobile will be a $300 billion marketplace by 2013 ... though perhaps that's a conservative estimate when you're selling pdfs for almost $3000.